2017-11-13: The Progenitor
- Log: The Progenitor
- Cast: Riesenlied, Zed
- Where: Wayside
- Date: 13th November 2017
- Summary: Zed brings a strange core to Riesenlied, who has Cetiri analyse it. The results are more surprising than expected.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Wayside!
Before... before the Incident involving Kalve, a Malevolent needle, and a massive explosion that drew the entire town into a mindscape of potato scallops and Zophar. Yeah. Hasn't happened yet.
Riesenlied is seated on her usual rocking chair in her capelet, with Mikaia sitting on her lap where she's typically seen; Janey has a curious CAPE!! from a certain Halloween gourmand draped around her shoulders as she goes--
"Neoooooown! I'm the wind, woosh!" as she runs in circles.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Thankfully, Zed has yet to be called upon to quest for the legendary Althenean Potato Peeler to save the world from the evils of the moon spuds. That would be a dark day indeed.
A second scarf billows in the wasteland town tonight. And it's not just because winter is slowly setting up shop like some kind of particularly awful seasonal jerk all over the place. No, there's a second scarf, much like the one wrapped around Janey's shoulders... Atop the rooftop!
Fluttering in the breeze...!
"Nyeheheheh, you'll have to run even faster than that to truly become the wind, young adventurer!" Zed-- it was always going to be Zed-- "If you want to someday beat this Dark Hero, that is...! ZED... JUMP!"
ZED JUMPS!
And lands, right in front of the porch. He has... something, bundled up under his arm. He turns about and looks up at Riese with a grin that somehow also seems to say 'riese i have something very important to show you for real and for serious.' "Riesenlied!" Zed declares, "I have something very important to show you. For real and for serious."
Zed pats his bundled package meaningfully.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Janey stares and gawks to go, "Dark Hero!! You've got a long way to go until you reach my level, the level of Lord of Calamity!!"
She looks so proud, because in her head, the logic of Calamity > Dark (because it has more syllables) holds totally true.
"A-ah?" Riesenlied smooches Mikaia at the back of her head as she lets her down and stands from her chair, tilting her head. "It's been a while, Zed. What might that be?"
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"But!" Zed puffs up, "While you might have a longer name! I! AM TALLER!" This is obviously just sense. "Reach my level someday, Janey the Lord of Calamity! Gwahahahahaha!"
"Hem."
"Yes! I've been travelling a bit," Zed says, wiggling his fingers at Mikaia with that trademark grin on his face. "And in the course of my travels, I've found..."
He pulls the cloth free of the bundle. There, in his arms is... A stone. A strange, unusual formation of bright, blue crystal cradled in a crimson, metallic shell. The lustre would be odd to most Filgaians, but not to these two. It looks like Living Metal; like a substantial component of the stone is made of the bones of Hyadeans.
There are a couple of little ports in the side that look like they could connect to a Photosphere data trunk.
"I found a... I don't know. Some kind of huge, half-broken giant," Zed says, somewhat more subdued. "It was... calling to me. I don't know if it's still alive, but it went to fight some drifters. When it disappeared, it left this with me."
"I kind of want to know if you recognize it. Or if Cetiri does. Or if we can hook it up to something to see what it contains."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Janey grumps just for a moment as her cheeks puff up. "I will get taller! And then I'll gloat over you, Zed the Dark Hero!" She puffs up further and goes, "Nyahahahaha--" and chokes for a bit, as Mikaia bops her over the head lightly to go, "You haven't done your chores, have you??" and drags her into the house.
Riesenlied's expression falls just a little as she gazes to the crystal, cradled in its shell. "... a data crystal?" she guesses at first. "The-- it bears semblance to some of the salvage I've seen some of the teams back at Photosphere surface..."
She squints for a moment, before tapping at her chin. "... a half-broken Giant?" She furrows her brow. "... let's get Cetiri to investigate it. She ought to have the tools necessary to pry information from it."
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"I've seen a lot of data crystals," because Zed has WASTED HIS LIFE WATCHING ANIME, "This is the first one I've seen with a casing like this. Whatever it is, I think it's important."
Or, maybe, it's just a message from a sad, abandoned behemoth left to decay in the sands of the Avehan desert.
"Let's bring it to Cetiri. There's something else I found that I think you should see, too. But first, this."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"I agree, it isn't like any of the standard crystals we harbour," Riesenlied pulls herself to her feet and walks down towards the laboratory near the orphanage, one of inevitably many little cavernous passages where recluses like AMBROSIUS and KALVE and now also CETIRI do their science and also--
--spit out what looks like a big metallic chew toy as Riese pushes the door open.
"Can you not knock, daughter?" comes the annoyed rasp from the metallic dog.
"I--I'm sorry," Riesenlied looks really embarrassed and yet also... incredibly adoring. "Zed-- Zed found this strange crystal..."
Cetiri peers towards it for an inquisitive moment. "Hm. A crystalline structure... living metal. Access ports... yes, I should be able to ascertain some information from this. One moment."
She hops from her basket-bed (ask her and she kills you) and slips one of her tail-tendrils into a wall socket, which brings down a larger and more complicated-looking machine down onto at able. "Over there, please."
And then she gets to work...
"Something else?" Riesenlied asks Zed about his earlier comment, as they watch.
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Reminder: Cetiri is a brilliant Hyadean scientist. She is not a dog. Obviously that metal chew toy was part of an experiment that no lesser mind could possibly hope to comprehend.
Surely.
"Oh uhhh, sure Doctor!" Zed peels his eyes away from the unnaturally squeaky and squishy metallic doggie bone and makes his way over to the table. And the incredibly complicated machine.
It's a really good thing Zed doesn't actually need to work it.
"Y-yeah," Zed says with a nod. He shoves a hand down into the folds of his scarf and pulls out what looks to be a transcription of a map, a collection of familiar symbols, and a strange sigil that might eventually be recognizable as a Hyadean unit insignia. "This. Some of Ida's colleagues from Gil Galad are digging in the area and had this stuff lying around their camp. So I made a copy."
"I think they're looking for lost Hyadean relics. I saw something like a... vault. Or maybe a pod that got jettesoned from the Photosphere and crash-landed here. I dunno. Figured you'd probably want to look into it."
Beat.
"Y'know, after we finish looking into this," Zed gestures over at where an adorable robodog is doing Science.
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
The adapter cables fit snugly into the ports. The Living Metal nanostructure shifts its shape ever-so-slightly to lock them into place--like most items of Hyadean technology, this core isn't biological, but it /does/ borrow elements of Hyaden physiology. That said, it may take Cetiri a few minutes to figure out how to access the core proper; it uses a storage format that's both older and more sophisticated than those used by common Hyadean computers. Is it a neural-crystal lace? Possibly. Those things are rare.
Cetiri is an expert at this sort of thing, though, and it doesn't take her long to get in. When she does, the screen lights up with what are undoubtedly Hyadean runes:
SALUTE CONFIRMED
AWAKENING ... ... ...
LEARNING CORE ONE-ZERO-EIGHT-ALG-AN-WUN
PROGENITOR JOTUNN-01 "YMIR"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Indeed, it must be a tensile strength experiment to create a control group over the breaking point of Living Metal arrangements when stress is applied to-- *squeaky!* ...
...
It might just be a chew toy.
"Guild Galad... the city of Dragons," Cetiri muses. "I'd heard of the Boneyard, but I thought it mere rumor -- the kind of hyperbole that manifests from centuries after the war. To think that it could have been real..."
She shakes her head.
"Hyadean relics..." Riesenlied muses, before pausing and thinking back to what Ida's said to her. "... that would line up with what she has told us before. But this insignia..."
She looks at the symbols and glosses over her mind for a moment.
A pause, and then Cetiri remarks, "Ah, fascinating. This is a format that I have not seen in a while -- most researchers say most of these have been destroyed and lost since the war..."
She pauses, and-- the screen lights up.
"Progenitor... Jotunn?" Riesenlied asks. "Ymir...?"
She blinks a few times. "'Learning Core'... is this some kind of adaptive core for a body of living metal? Did that line up with the Giant you encountered...?"
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
It's a nice chew toy though.
At least Cetiri is a dog-shaped scientist of impeccable taste.
"Yeah, I didn't recognize the insignia at first, but it seems kind've familiar, somehow." Zed shakes his head-- the history of his people wasn't ever really his best subject. Also, he's only been awake for a few years now. Give him a break!!
But then... The words appear on the screen. The code is something far beyond Zed's comprehension, but the words are clear as day. "Progenitor Jotunn...?" The Dark Hero blinks slowly and... frowns. "Learning Core... It might be. When the giant appeared, it kind of... rose out of this metallic pool that came up out of the ground. Maybe... Maybe this is like its brain, or something...? It was... Well, I mean, it didn't /look/ like a Metal Dragon. It was more like a Gear than anything? Or a... You know. A Golem."
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"This is..." Riesenlied pauses. "The Ash Legion's insignia."
She pauses for a moment longer, rubbing at the side of her cheek, glossing where the scales have emerged over her skin. "They were a legendary group of Metal Dragon Riders and morphers both, back during the war, led by Commander Fafnir. Their tactics were... brutal, but effective."
She think back to that emblem for a moment, the one she found and gave back to Ida.
There's a longer pause, as she looks towards the core. "I wonder if this may have been an attempt to create an autonomous 'learning' drone?"
Cetiri looks back towards the two. "This is undoubtedly Hyadean in origin, though I would have to return to the Photosphere to see if any records remain..." A pause. "But that wouldn't be amiss, as a first theory. A 'brain' that could learn, adapt, and take an optimal form for various combat situations. A self-improving machine, as it were."
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
...QUICKENING DATE: 10.1.999 AL
'After Landfall'. That date--if it's not an error--means this core was quickened last month. If the thing it came from was much older... what could that mean?
INITIAL BURN PHASE INCOMPLETE FURTHER TRIALS NECESSARY
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"The Ash Legion?" Zed blinks. "Wait. You mean--" Fafnir's group! "Oh! Uncle Zeik told me all about those guys. They were... Pretty incredible. But if the map is pointing to places related to the Ash Legion, then... Maybe these marks are all huge Metal Dragon graveyards? I don't know how many fell during the war, but there had to be a lot more than we've got now."
"...And that means we should probably get to them before Ida and the others do. Right?"
That's what the Ebon Wings do, after all.
But then, the topic switches back to the strange crystal sitting on the table. Zed frowns at the words on the scren. 10.1.999? That can't be right. "The giant I found was... Ancient. Like. It had replaced its leg with one from an Avehan gear that was I-don't-know how old. A month ago is... Way too soon."
Beat.
"What... Does Initial Burn Phase mean?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"... yes, we should," Riesenlied answers Zed, gently. "As I understand it, Ida would have been working with Guild Galadian scientists who have a vested interest in digging Fossils as part of their research."
There's a gentle sigh as she looks towards the core again.
"... this core was quickened last month," Cetiri surmises as she pulls that date out. "999 AL... 999 years After Landfall. Though, I cannot rule out that this may have been a recent date from its most recent awakening -- much like how a long-dormant system often resets..."
Riesenlied looks onto the screen as well. "Burn Phase...?"
"A 'Burn Phase' is parlance used by combat R&D," Cetiri explains. "You know of the term 'Trial by Fire'? It is related. A Burn Phase refers to a period of testing to determine a project's combat readiness."
Cetiri's tail flicks in a mischevious way. "You spectacularly burned out during your very first trial, back when, Riesenlied."
"... must you tease me?" Riesenlied's horns deflate.
"I am your mother, after all."
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
"I /did/ try telling them off for digging out one of the formations we found, but. Well. You know how those Guild Galad archaeology teams can get." EXTREMELY nerdy, pale-faced, red-haired and overall looking like they're vaguely combustible. "Well. At least we've got a map. Ida's got the same one, but /we/ have things that fly! So I'd say we can probably get there before they can!" Or at least, to some of them. They can't be everywhere at once.
Zed seems mostly preoccupied with the core and the readings coming out of it, though. He frowns, rubbing his chin. "I guess it COULD be a reactivation date. You'd think something like that giant would've been more... famous. If it was around and active for a while, I mean."
"But then, it WAS in a desert, too. So maybe it's just that nobody was around to see it?"
"If a Burn Phase is a trial by fire, though, then I'm guessin' there's something else. The giant was maimed pretty bad. If that's not battle damage, I don't know what it could've been."
Beat.
Zed slooowly turns his head at this Adorably Embarassing Family Moment and equally slooowly grins. "Aww, come on. Riese is great! You know, except that she is also EXTREMELY PATTABLE."
Beat.
...Wonder what having a mother would be like. Huh.
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
"... we haven't yet established a dialogue with them. I... was really hoping to be able to get Miss Ida to help me, but..." Riesenlied has a gentle, wistful sigh, thinking of a possibility that may already have been forever frayed.
"Hm... yes, I will have Noeline cross-reference it with our own ones. We've currently been committing to the theft at Hartwell Gunsmoke, but it does not mean that these leads are not important. Thank you, Zed," she smiles at him.
Cetiri continues with a musing, "That it was only active for a month likely explains why it has not gained more notoriety. It is hard to miss a Giant rampaging around the plainside, after all."
A pause.
"Of course, the other possibility is that it *is* only a month old, and we have a much grander mystery in our midst."
Cetiri might or might not be imagining Alhazred going 'ooo ho ho ho' and dropping a self-learning core in the middle of the Badlands just for funsies and running off.
Riesenlied twiddles her thumbs for a moment, and says, "I--I'm glad you think so... w-wait, pattable?"
Cetiri's tail goes over Riese's head at this point. Pat pat pat... Hyadeans are getting headpats...
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
Yeah no that sounds almost exactly like something that Alhazred would do. He seems /just/ like That Guy. There's a reason he's the most foremost scientist in the Photosphere. Evil Science is Immortal, after all.
"Nyahahahahaha, it's fine, it's fine! Don't worry about it. Worst case, I can always go after them too." Or is that the best case scenario? An unoccupied Zed is... notoriously dangerous. It's like having fidgety hands, except /everywhere./
"I'm kind of curious about the whole... Jotunn thing. Progenitor Jotunn-01. What does that mean? Is it its name, or is it saying that its Progenitor /is/ Jotunn-01?"
What is Ymir?
They need to do some digging in the archives.
Zed is deep in thought when suddenly...
*Pat.*
*Pat pat pat pat*
Zed stares at Cetiri's waggling tail and the Riese underneath it.
He feels a strange feeling deep in his gut.
Oh. Oh no.
It's... The /giggles./
<Pose Tracker> Ida Everstead-Rey has posed.
It takes a bit of figuring for Cetiri to get to the core's user interface, but it has one. (The fact that it does means that, evidently, this thing is supposed to be looked at by Hyadean technicians periodically. Or was.) Some of it's corrupted, and she'd have to spend some more time with it to figure out what it's /for/, but she can determine which parts are the newest. One of them... looks like visual data? A video. Cetiri can pull it up onscreen, though it's fragmentary, possibly corrupted.
A few seconds here...
HYADEAN BIOLOGICAL SIGNATURE IDENTIFIED
It's looking down at Zed. Something goes /twitch/ as it tries to process corrupted data blocks.
SECURE INJURED WARRIOR FOR RETRIEVAL
A red forcefield rises around Zed, encasing him in a protective field. Zed immediately begins hammering at it with Doom Bringer. "Dammit! Let me go! You can't just go without answering me!"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Never underestimate the willingness of Cetiri to just cozy up in her little basket-bed, full of fluffed up pillows and a fresh tray of water and a chew-toy, while she whiles the days away watching videos.
"... some data corruption, which is understandable given the state of the core," Cetiri comments. "Ah-- hold on..."
She displays the video, which shows Zed--
And Zed struggling as he hits it with Doom Bringer. "... and we probably have a probable cause for the state of the core."
The tail reeeeeaches.
And then starts patting Zed on the head too.
"Hmmm. I deem you suitable," Cetiri comments. "From now on, you are my son too."
Just like that?!
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Never underestimate the willingness of Cetiri to just cozy up in her little basket-bed, full of fluffed up pillows and a fresh tray of water and a chew-toy, while she whiles the days away watching videos.
"... some data corruption, which is understandable given the state of the core," Cetiri comments. "Ah-- hold on..."
She displays the video, which shows Zed--
And Zed struggling as he hits the forcefield with Doom Bringer. "... you said you were involved in combat with it, yes? If it sustained much damage... we probably have a probable cause for the state of the core."
The tail reeeeeaches.
And then starts patting Zed on the head too.
"Hmmm. I deem you suitable," Cetiri comments. "From now on, you are my son too."
Just like that?!
<Pose Tracker> Zed has posed.
I-Injured!? Was Zed really that beat up...?
FLASHBACK SEQUEEEENCE~!
Zed leaps off a cliff to try and punch a rock to check whether or not it's an egg.
Everyone else figures this is a stupid idea and trips him into a whole bunch of other sharper, pointier, bigger rocks.
Those jerks.
/FLASHBACK SEQUEEEENCE~!
"...Oh yeah," Zed mutters, scratching his chin. "...I didn't see what they did to beat it, but there was a flash of light big enough for me to see from all the way across the desert. So it was probably something pretty-"
*Pat*
"--Fluffy??"
Pat. Pat. Pat.
"I- I get to be your son?" Beat. Zed appears to be vibrating... happily. "Oh. Oh. Does this mean Riese is my sister!?"
...
"Wait. I'm like a thousand."
...
"A-am I the oniisama!?"
<Pose Tracker> Riesenlied has posed.
Riesenlied's eyes widen as she stammers, "U-uh--"
A pause.
"I'm-- well-- er--" she decides to digest this fact that her mother has just rubberstamped an 'IMOUTO' stamp on her forehead by deflecting to say, "Are there any other encounters of note? That you can render into video?"
The horns are wiggling with consternation, at this point.
"... there appear to be other encounters with humans -- between this and the encounter with Zed, as well as the terminology used, we can definitively say this is of Hyadean make, at this point. Further inquiry is necessary to ascertain more facts, however... this, I can do, but not immediately."
She looks to Zed.
"I may make use of your services, since you are more mobile and can inquire information more freely back at the Photosphere, as needed."
Which is a polite way to say 'you're not Tainted', really.